Supreme Court Won’t Hear Sexual Orientation Job Bias Case

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down a chance to decide whether the main federal job-bias law bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The nation’s highest court on Monday rejected an appeal by Jameka Evans, who said she was subjected to discrimination and harassment while working at Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah.

Lower courts are divided about whether the law, known as Title VII, covers sexual orientation. The Atlanta-based federal appeals court that handled Evans’s case said in March that sexual orientation isn’t included.

The following month a Chicago-based federal appeals court disagreed, ruling that sexual-orientation discrimination is a form of gender bias, which Title VII explicitly prohibits in the workplace.

Evans’s bid for Supreme Court review faced a procedural complication that might have dissuaded the justices from hearing the case. Georgia Regional Hospital declined to participate, saying it hadn’t been formally served with a copy of the lawsuit, which Evans originally filed without the benefit of a lawyer.

The case is Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, 17-370.

Copyright 2019 Bloomberg.

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